And before you think I’ve come over all Hollywood epic, I haven’t. I’m simply asking where you think we might be at the end of this shocking by-product of the global fiscal kleptocracy. What will be the shape of our IT horizon, what will it all look like for Information Technology and technologists as the smoke clears from the battlefields of commerce and we look toward peace. Will there still be an IT department, as we know it now?

To briefly extend the Roman theme, you will probably have experienced the Ides of March, the obligatory stabbings on the forum steps and the consequential factional purging as the true scale of the disaster became all too apparent in many organisations around the world.

Sadly for many IT folk, the true value of their contribution will have been subsumed as cost calculations have overridden potential and benefit in a stark reflection of the financial emergency. To my mind this will lead to an acceleration of the concept behind Nicholas Carr’s article that “IT Doesn’t Matter” and I was reminded today of something I wrote several years ago in response to this, then, seemingly controversial idea.

“Mr. Carr was essentially correct, and, if people had chosen to look beyond the title’s clever sound bite opportunity, they would have seen the logic of his premise. A premise, which explored the fact that technology is ubiquitous in all businesses and technology, of itself, provides no competitive advantage.

Competitive and strategic advantage within a business resides in its people, the corporate culture, and management and how the company uses technology. He argued that more effort should be spent on stabilizing and securing the ‘core’ technology infrastructure rather than in following a revolutionary, technology driven path to certain business extinction.

He followed through on his arguments in the Spring 2005 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review and produced a sequel entitled “The End of Corporate Computing.” Here he explored the commoditisation of IT to its logical conclusion: a mature industry organized to supply an efficient product (cost effective, resilient and evolutionary). He foresaw the commoditized provision of IT services and products by utility-based technology companies.

To an extent, I can see his vision already at work. When I arrive at work in the morning I expect to be able to gain key card access to a secure building, boot up my computer and open my e-mail account to begin my day. I’ll need to pull up a Web browser to check the latest news online, do a bit of research and then access basic services like file directories and printers. I expect these systems to operate without failure or downtime in much the same way that I expect the lights to come on, the taps to provide water and for there to be air conditioning and/or heat to make my day as comfortable as possible.

These expectations do not distinguish my company from any of our competitors, but sometimes the execution does. I/We pay great attention to security, change control and reliability and employ some great people to achieve this. Because these technology functions just happen, IT has become largely invisible to the majority of the company. IT has evolved into ‘business-as-usual’ and expenditure on the ‘core’ is just an inherent cost of doing business. ”

So, to today and then tomorrow, I believe IT will become increasingly standardised and utilitarian as cost cutting becomes the order of the day. Outsourcing, SaaS, managed services and the Cloud will become increasingly pivotal to many a technical strategy as we pursue the Holy Grail of a frictionless business and the low cost IT model so beloved of the accountants.

I can very easily see a post recession world where the core is delivered by third parties and the technology enhancement function provided by ‘Super IT’ teams (today’s Guerrilla IT) embedded within the main Business units, in a move away from the previous centralised model. The same will apply to other Back Office elements like Finance as core functions are defined and outsourced and key elements like credit control simply bolt on to the delivery teams in a natural reduction of the frictions of commerce.  In an evolved organization this may well leave ‘top table’ roles for IT and Finance as oversight and strategy alone.

I sincerely hope the utilities we create to provide these services offer the same flexibility, resilience and performance that businesses have grown to expect from IT. Thus, that sacrificing IT delivery on the altar of financial expedience does not entirely destroy the personality that enlivens and drives revolutionary technical change and empowers business performance.

For, as John Ruskin once said ‘ A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it'.